Yes, chef? Maybe not for much longer

When I was young, I logged a lot of hours as a waitress.

None of those hours were logged in any place fancy: no executive chefs, no sous chefs, no tall white toques. 

My first waitressing gig was at the neighborhood Big Boy, where at any given time there were two or three guys manning the line, grilling up the burgers, frying up the onion rings. John. Danny. Timmy. Bob. Don. Mel. The other John, who worked in the basement prepping items for the line. I seem to remember him breading the onion rings.

I don't remember all the fellows - and they were all men (or boys-to-men) - who I met during my two summers and one Christmas vacation working there, but they were a combo of blue collar, hardworking guys and hippies, who weren't quite as hardworking as the blue collars, but tended to be pretty interesting. John (upstairs John), Danny, and Timmy were brothers, and genuinely nice men. (And cute.) Bob was a nasty a-hole. Don was okay, but a bit rough around the edges. (I think he'd just gotten out of jail.) Mel talked about writing a novel called 86 that Dream. John (downstairs John) was a very handsome Jamaican guy who loved Tom Jones, and blared his music.

Sometimes the cooks fought with each other. Sometimes they yelled at the waitresses. But the only violence I ever witnessed at Big Boy was when a busboy had a bit of a breakdown and started beating his head against the cement block wall in the basement.

Union Oyster House, my next waitressing stop, was far fancier and more upscale than Big Boy. It was a big tourist destination, had a full bar, some fancy - or what counted for fancy 50+ years ago - menu items (Oysters Rockefeller, Lobster Thermidor), and had supposedly been a haunt of pre-Jackie JFK when he was a young Congressman representing Boston. (Amazing to think of it now, but when I waitressed at Union Oyster, JFK had been dead less than 10 years.) All that, but no head chef toque-wearing nonsense.

We had cooks, mostly Jamaicans, a couple of Greeks who mostly handled the raw shelfish and steamers, and a salad maker named Willie who made salads and shrimp cocktails with a perpetual stogie hanging out of his mouth. His big line to all the waitresses, which he must have repeated dozens of times each day was, "I had a dream about you last night. We was making love." The Greek guys spoke very little English, but were always inviting the young waitresses out to the Club Plaka. (One night we actually went and had fun slurping down retsina shots and doing some sort of circle dance with a scarf.) 

The Jamaican guys were riotously funny, if you consider occasionally frying up cockroaches in the Fisherman's Platter mix riotously funny. The funniest thing they did happened on a night the power went out. They had a small generator that could keep some lights on, but the AC was gone, and this was a hot August night, and for some reason the busiest night of the summer. The managers put candles out in the dining room and we carried on. The kitchen - as you can imagine - became unbearable, and the Jamaican fellows running the giant gas stoves and fryolators were bearing the brunt of it. 

Their complaints fell on deaf management ears - The house was full! The show must go on! - until the cooks figured out how to shut the place down. They took off all their clothing, and the half of the waitressing staff composed of little old first gen Irish ladies from South Boston weren't going to go into any kitchen where there were a bunch of naked men. Bonus points that these men were all Black.

At the Oyster House, everyone yelled at each other all the time, but most of it was wisecracking, bitching, trashtalking. The only time I saw anyone berated was when I forgot to leave a chit in at the bar for a drink called a Golden Dream. Louie, the bartender, hunted me down in the dining room, grabbed my arm, and screamed at me, "Give me the dupe for that Golden Dream."

To finance a cross-country wander and a four month hitchhiking trek through Europe, I worked after I dropped out of grad school at Durgin Park for a year. Durgin, now closed, was - along with the still-surviving Oyster House - a venerable Boston tourist trap. 

The owner during my time there was a temperamental maniac who put on a daily screaming and yelling performance, with the waitresses being his favorite targets. (His second favorite target: the customers.) It would take a book - or at least a long chapter - to describe just what an insane environment Durgin was. But I don't remember insanity among the cooks. There was Billy B. (Billy B. couldn't read, so couldn't tell what was on the order slips we submitted. But we had to call out the order when we hung the slips, and Billy B. flawlessly took care of everything from memory.) Henry-the-Elder. (Short and rugged, and a truly nice and kind man.) Henry-the-Younger. (Who looked like Ichabod Crane and was a good kid.) Glenn, the maniac owner's son-in-law who sometimes worked the line, was an object of our sympathy and pity. 

Durgin was hectic and loud, and the owner was as nasty as they get. But he was so over the top, and the old gal waitresses, which Durgin was famous for, so knew how to play him like a fiddle (which they regularly did on behalf of the young gal waitresses he went after), that the craziness was pretty much a laughing matter. And I never saw abuse to or from the cooks.

My waitressing career ended over a half century ago, and wasn't at any high-end restaurants to begin with, but things seemed to have changed. The advent of the celebrity chef, the emergence of the international culinary scene, the world of the "must be seen there scene" restaurant, the extreme and extremely fussy food innovations. All this has turned many of the big deal restaurants into wildly intensive environments that are brutal to work in. 

I read all about it in a NY Times article from March that focused on René Redzepi, a world renowned chef I had never heard of, who stepped down from Noma, a world renowned restaurant I had never heard of. Days before Redzepi had announced his down-steping:

The New York Times [had] reported allegations that Mr. Redzepi had punched, slammed and inflicted other physical punishments on cooks from 2009 to 2017. (Source: NY Times)

Yikes!

Okay, yikes!, but something that's a lot more widespread than one chef at Noma.  

The situation at Noma has apparently:

...lent new urgency to a conversation in the global restaurant industry about how to fix professional kitchens once and for all. Although past scandals and the #MeToo movement have resulted in better conditions at many restaurants, chefs said bullying and abuse still persist at too many others.

Dominique Crenn, the first woman in the United States to head a restaurant with three Michelin stars, said it is well past time to change the notion that performing at the highest level in the world’s top kitchens requires humiliation, intimidation or violence.

“We have been talking about this forever,” she said.

The up and coming chefs, it seems, just aren't going to take it any longer. 

A growing cohort of chefs — people who are young, who are not men and who are very online — say they want to hold the industry to account for the abuse and discrimination that have persisted in restaurant kitchens.

...Tiffani Faison, a chef in Boston, said that public awareness of abuse in restaurants has risen since 2017, when celebrity chefs like Mario Batali were accused of sexual misconduct and dethroned, but the reckoning didn’t go far enough.

“We changed the curtains, but we didn’t remodel the house,” she said. “And we still haven’t cleaned out the basement where we hid the skeletons.”

Whether you're working in the unglamorous sorts of restaurants I worked in, or some $1,000 a plate glam spot with an eleven month waiting list to sup on the likes of vaporized truffle gnat eye, restaurant kitchens are going to be hot, tense, noisy, and hectic. Plus dangerous: boiling oil, hot stoves, knives. Comes with the territory. But they don't need to be toxic and abusive. No workplace does. 

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Image Source: Etsy

Dashing to the door...

When I worked full time, and my husband wast still among the living, we ate out regularly. As in at least 3-5 nights a week. I'd get home from work, we'd head out for a walk, and stop somewhere for dinner and drinks. If we didn't go out, we'd fend for ourselves, often with whatever was in the prior night's doggy bag. Sometimes we ordered a pizza, Chinese, or Thai, walking over to the restaurant to pick it up. I typically cooked on Saturday night. So there'd be leftovers on Sunday.

I didn't particularly enjoy cooking, but had about a dozen recipes on my menu. A couple of chicken dishes. A few pasta meals. Chili. Meatloaf. Stuffed peppers. Hot and spicy greebeans with pork. Quiche. A few of my dishes were sufficiently interesting that someone might actually think I was a cook. The curried chicken with currants, almonds, and peppers, served with couscous. The pasta with black olives, roasted red peppers, parsley, and walnuts, which I picked up while casually watching Julia Childs one day back in the early 1970s. 

So I could cook. While I always loved baking, I just wasn't wild about cooking. And was in no mood to cook when I got home from work. I was just as happy to get a little walk in and plunk myself down in a restaurant and start reading the menu.

I still don't cook every night, but I'm more of a cook now, and my repertoire is vastly expanded. In the past couple of weeks, I've made spicy lemon shrimp with lemon'd basmati rice. A shepherd's pie (which I left on the counter overnight, so only go one meal rather than four out of it). Scallops with orzo and cherry tomatoes. Peppered chicken breast with mashed potatoes and broccoli. An omelet with grilled asparagus. 

Other than the omelet, I cook in volume so there'll be something for at least two nights plus extras for the freezer. My brother comes over once a week for dinner and I'll send him home with Rubbermaid containers full of meals for his freezer, as his idea of cooking is opening a can of soup.

Not that mine isn't.

It's not as if I've never made a dinner out of a can of Italian Wedding Soup. (Or some instant oatmeal doctored up with apples, nuts, and raisins.)

These days, once in a very blue moon, I'll order a legit (non-pizza, non-Chinese) meal from a local restaurant and walk over to fetch it.

Never say never, but I have only had food delivered a couple of times in my life. And that was before DoorDash and Uber Eats. Never say never, but I have never had a meal delivered by either of the above.

Not that there's anything wrong with it.

Other than that a lot of the local deliveey drivers are on unlicensed ebikes, and are a menace to pedestrians. They ignore stop signs, red lights, one way streets. They weave along sidewalks, scattering walkers as they speed by. They drive pell-mell through the leafy (other than in winter) pathways of the Boston Public Garden. They make an awful lot of noise revving around. I live in fear that I'll die in fear being hit by one of them.

Yes, I know they're all just trying to make a living. But I really don't like having them around.

Yet I know that there are a lot of folks who rely on them. 

Some even live in my building, where three young women share a flat and where some mornings I walk out and find on the mail table in the foyer a bag containing what looks like an Egg McMuffin that's just been dropped off. Is the nearest McDonald's even a 10 minute walk away? And how hard is it to pop an English muffin in the toaster, scramble up and egg, and microwave a slice of Jimmy Dean sausage patty?

But as someone who has eaten out an awful lot during my life, who am I to judge?

Yet judge I do.

The NYTimes ran a recent article on the meal delivery business. Turns out that:

In 2024, almost three of every four restaurant orders were not eaten in a restaurant, according to data from the National Restaurant Association. The number of households using delivery had roughly doubled from 2019, just before the pandemic, the group said. And in a survey last year, about one-third of American adults told the association that they ordered food for delivery at least once a week. (Source: NY Times)

Some are ordering in a lot more than that.

Like at young woman in San Diego who spends $200-300 a week (on a salary of $50K!) dining in on meals like spaghetti with marina from a spot just down the street. When she could cook up some pasta and open a jar of Rao's for a fraction of the cost. 

And all that delivery isn't making her happy:

Ordering in has eaten away at her savings, she said, and led her to socialize less. She tips generously, but worries that the delivery drivers are poorly paid.

Then there's the Atlanta-based marketing exec with two kids..."he and his husband spend about $700 a week to order in."

“I am so burned out and tired, I would rather just throw my credit card at the problem and delay that unhappiness until the bill comes,” he said.

I understand perfectly. Cooking after you've put in a solid workday plus commute is a colossal drag. 

My favorite sitch in the article was that of a young data analyst in LA who moonlights for Uber Eats "to pay off his debt from ordering too much food delivery." 

What a world we live in...

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Image Source: Built In

I can think of worse crimes

Kinston, NC, doesn't get a lot of snow. But in February, they got 15", breaking a record that has stood since 1927. 

One thing about living in a place that's not a stranger to snowfall, people pretty much know how to get through it. There are snowplows. Mounds of sand and rocksalt. Although I am always surprised when there's a first-storm-of-the-season rush on hardware stores for shovels, most folks do have a shovel around. And if they're smart, a 40 pound balt of ice melt. Or at least an 8 pound shaker. 

Yes, people get into a pre-storm panic and quickly strip the grocery store shelves of bread, the coolers of milk. But those of us in Snow Country have useful skills, like knowing how to drive in the white stuff. And mostly, we know enough that, when "they" suggest that we stay home, we stay the f home. Curfews are only for insane blizzard conditions. Not your average 15" dump o' snow.

Snowy weather skills are honed over generations, and even when we haven't been having bad winters for a stretch, when they do happen race memory kicks in and we know how to cope. (We've had pretty lousy winter in these parts. Most snow in the last five years, and the coldest winter since 1977. Heating bills are sky high, but at least bitter cold helps tamp down rat reproduction. So there's that.)

But Kinston, NC - while it gets bad hurricane season rotten weather - doesn't get a lot of bad snowy weather. So the mayor of this small city (population roughly 20,000) set a curfew. Unless you were working, you were supposed to stay in. Which means that you couldn't be out and about.

Apparently, the problem for Jonathan Hackett was that he didn't have a place to stay, so he couldn't help but be out and about.

But he found his way to the Little Caesars where he used to work. They hadn't changed the key code from his time there so, push a few buttons and - voila - Hackett was in. (He claimed that the manager gave him permission to spend the night. Not clear whether that was in fact the case.)

With time on his hands, and the storm raging, Hackett did what any old pizza shop worker might do: He started making pizzas. (Give a man the ability to make a pizza, and he'll have work for life...) What do you do with a pizza? Why you can always give it away for free. Or so the message started spreading via Facebook. 

So, figuring that Little Caesars was making a goodwill gesture to the snowbound community, a few folks decided curfew-smurfew and showed up for their free pizza. 

But the enterprising Hackett decided he could make a buck. He started selling pizzas for $5 a pie, which even though Little Caesars in Kinston, NC is pretty inexpensive, was at least a slight bargain. (Some buyers said they were charged $10, which is closer to the standard price for a pizza.)

All in all, Hackett claims to have sold 10 pizzas, so he pocketed maybe $50 bucks.

He took off at some point, but when he arrived back at the shop, he encountered the manager and her family there. They had been at work, prepping the business for the next day, and decided to camp out there on a snowy night.

Everyone was asleep, when someone heard a noise. It was Hackett in the room. The [manager's] husband was awakened by a figure in the room: Hackett. That’s when the fight ensused. The husband told police that he was “about to do my thing” when Hackett swung at him and ran, so he chased Hackett down, confessing to police that he was “whooping his ass.” His son came outside, saw his dad holding Hackett, and “did what he had to do.”

The manager called the police, and told them that they’d detained a trespasser. When two officers showed up around 9:30, Hackett was being held down outside, bleeding from his face. For his part, Hackett told the police that he didn’t know why he’d been chased and beaten up. Again, even though he was a former employee, he said that the manager had given him permission to come into the Little Caesars to sleep. He did admit to selling pizzas, though. (Source: Jeremy Markovich, NC Rabbithole)

Hackett is facing a few felony charges - including B&E, larceny - and a couple of misdemeanor counts, including violating the Kinston curfew. In addition to getting his "ass whooped," Hackett could end up serving a prison sentence for his troubles. 

If this is all they have on him, I hope that Jonathan Hackett doesn't end up in the hoosegow for a couple of years. I can think of a lot worse crimes than breaking and entering a pizza shop and selling a few crappy pizzas to folks just looking for some comfort food on a snowy night. 

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Image Source: Little Caesars Peoria Facebook

A lobster tale

I like lobster as much as the next New Englander, but it's not something I eat all that often.

Mostly when I have lobster it's in the summer, and in the form of a lobster roll. 

I like the idea of a boiled lobster, but it's a big, messy pain in the butt. Once you retrieve the easy meat, which you get at by twisting the tail off and prodding the meat through, things get harder. You need to crack the claws, which don't always open up perfectly. As for the legs, whether you're poking the stringy meat out with a lobster pick, or sucking it out, as god intended, it's mostly not worth the effort.

Dipping lobster meat in drawn butter is sort of fun, but a mess. Your fingers get all greasy and you end up with butter running down your chin. 

If you're preparing boiled lobster at home, you have to kill the critters. I don't know how sentient lobsters are - I'm guessing not very - but one minute you have these guys crawling around in your tub, and the next minute you're sending them to their death. Not for the faint of heart.

Plus in my no doubt minority opinion, lobster doesn't actually taste like much of anything. Other than the butter you're dipping it in, or the butter the lobster on the lobster roll comes doused in. 

Anyway, if I'm looking for a seafood thing-y that says summer, more often than not, I'm going with fried clams or fried oysters. And the thought of eating lobster, fried clams, or fried oysters anytime other than summer is anathema to me.

Which is not to deny that plenty of folks love lobster. Year round, lobsters are on the pricey menu. And who among us hasn't been to a height of luxury wedding with surf 'n' turf on the menu? (Sorry, if the surf isn't lobster, it ain't surf 'n' turf.)

The lobster industry is primarily New England based, mostly in Maine, which produces the great majority of American lobsters. (The American lobster is what most homies think of as lobster. As opposed to langostinos, which aren't technically lobsters, or European lobsters, which are lobsters, but pre-cooked are blue vs. American lobsters, which are dark brown. Both cook up bright red, by the way.)

While I might think of lobster as summer fare, lobsters were in the news earlier this winter when a truckload of lobster meat valued at $400K pulled a disappearing act between leaving the warehouse in Taunton, Mass. and (not) arriving at some midwest Costcos. 

Seafood theft is apparently a pretty big "business," and the criming is pretty well organized. 

According to Dylan Rexing, CEO of the broker/logistics company that was ripped off, this was the second recent theft from Lineage Logistics, the Taunton cold storage facility where the lobsters were swiped from. Earlier, it had been crab. A few weeks prior, a different facility in Maine had 14 cages worth of oysters, worth $20K, stolen. 

“This theft wasn’t random,” Rexing’s email said. “It followed a pattern we’re seeing more and more, where criminals impersonate legitimate carriers using spoofed emails and burner phones to hijack high-value freight while it’s in transit.”

Rexing said his company hired a driver “that was fraudulently impersonating another carrier” in a case of “highly sophisticated” identity theft. (Source: Boston Globe)

Speculation is that the lobsters ended up in seafood markets in Boston and/or NYC, where it was sold at a discount.  

The FBI is actively investigating the incident which looks to be part of a growing pattern of organized cargo thefts targeting high-value freight in the United States, Rexing said.

Good to know that the FBI is on the case. Maybe they've been freed up from escorting Kash Patel's girlfriend around. Homeland Security Investigations is also in on the act. Better looking out for stolen lobsters than thugging around maltreating the people of Minnesota, but if Homeland Security Investigations is going to be doing any investigating, I'd just as soon they start with ICE. A girl can hope, can't she?

The Department of Transportation is also looking at cargo thefts, which end up in losses to brokerages like Rexing's, tax revenue losses to the feds and state governments, and additional costs to the "average American family," who are getting hit with over $500 worth of extra spending each year. 

I imagine that perishable cargos are especially difficult to recover. By the time the FBI, DHS, and DOT have started sleuthing, that lobster meat has already been scarfed down in a lobster roll. An out-of-season lobster roll, I might add. So don't blame me!

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Image Source: Vital Choice

M'm! M'm! Good!

Lunchtime when I was a kid usually meant soup and a sandwich. My mother was a scratch cook, and a fabulous soup-maker, but soup at lunch came out of a can of Campbell's. M'm m'm good.

I liked Vegetarian Vegetable. Vegetable Beef. Beef Barley. Scotch Broth. Chicken Noodle. Chicken with Rice. Tomato. It's been a million years since I've lunched on Campbell's soup and a sandwich, but I can still remember exactly what those soups tasted like. 

These days, while there may be a can or two of Campbell's Mushroom on my shelf - there's a ham and noodle casserole, a childhood favorite, that calls for mushroom soup - if I'm opening a can of soup for lunch or dinner, it's going to be Progresso. Italian Wedding. Chickarina. Macaroni & Bean. 

Still, there's a place in my heart for Campbell's soup. 

But apparently not in the heart of the Martin Bally, the now former vice president and Chief Information Security Officer for Campbell's.

Robert Garza, an ex-employee, has filed a law suit claiming racial discrimination and harrassment against Campbell's. And in his suit, he takes a side excursion, alleging that Bally "said Campbell’s food is 'highly process food' for 'poor people.'" Garza pretty much had the goods on Bally. He recorded the conversation.

In the recording Garza shared with WDIV [Detroit], the person can be heard saying he doesn’t buy Campbell’s products because he doesn’t know what is in them.

“We have (expletive) that’s for poor people,” you can hear the male voice say in the recording, a copy of which was shared with USA TODAY. “I don’t buy (expletive) Campbell’s products barely anymore.”

The person went on to say that when he looks at a can of Campbell’s soup, he thinks it contains “bioengineered meat.”

“I don’t want to eat a (expletive), a piece of chicken that came from a 3D printer, do you?” the person said. (Source: USA Today)

Well, who among us hasn't badmouthed their company's products? Nobody I ever worked with. The snidery towards poor people aside, this is actually pretty funny. I especialy loved the bit about "a piece of chicken that came from a 3D printer."

But wait! There's more! (There's always more.)

Garza [also] alleges in the suit that Bally also made racist comments about Indian workers at the company, calling them “idiots” and saying he disliked working with them. Bally also told Garza he came to work high on marijuana edibles, Garza alleges. 

Of course, Campbell's doesn't want an employee - especially a senior one - making fun of their products. And Campbell's, of course, maintains that the chicken in their Chicken Noodle is not bio-engineered or 3D printed. But in terms of harm to Martin Bally, racist remarks and coming to work high seem to be more harmful than product jokes.  

Anyway, Bally has a reasonably impressive resume, and if he can talk his way out of Garza's claims, I'm sure he'll land somewhere. There's high demand for information security pros. And, in my experience, "they" - higher ups, no matter how awful they are - always land somewhere. But what a fool Bally was to be talking the way he did in front of an employee he barely knew. (Garza had only been with Campbell's for five months when he was fired.)

Maybe he'd had one edible too many on the way into work that day.

No word yet on the outcome of Garza's suit - other than Martin Bally being canned - but one source says that Garza was fired for cause. Garza maintains he was let go because he had filed complaints of racial discrimination and harrassment. 

I was thinking of running out and buying a can of Scotch Broth for old time's sake. Despite the fact that it contained lamb - mutton? - I loved this soup. Lots of barley and ultra salty. Alas, Scotch Broth has been discontinued. 

And so it goes...

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Image Source: Call Me A Food Lover

Betcha can't eat just one

Seriously, who doesn't like potato chips?

There are plenty of food items you can't eat just one of: Oreos, M&Ms, and peanuts, for starters. But right up there on my list you'll find potato chips. And you don't need to take my word for it. During my youth, Lay's ran a famous ad saying "betcha can't eat just one."

Not that I ate Lay's. In my house, if and when we had chips - which was mostly when we were having a holiday cookout, so Memorial Day, Fourth of July, or Labor Day, or when we were going on a picnic or having a day at the beach - we had State Lines, a local brand that has almost but not quite disappeared. (State Line got its name from its location: Enfield, Connecticut, on the Massachusetts-Connecticut boarder.) In school, when I had an extra nickel to buy a bag of chips, the brand was even more local: Wachusett, a product of Worcester County. 

These days, if and when I buy chips, it's almost always going to be Cape Cod, which are delish. (Not exactly a unique opinion.  Earlier this year, Cape Cod Originals with Sea Salt were chosen the best potato chip by Food and Wine.)

If and when I buy a sub, which I try to limit to once every couple of months, I'll usually throw in a bag of Lay's, which seems to have a monopoly on local sub shops. 

Lay's are fine, just not my faves. But they are the market share leader, and they're doing a big brand makeover. 

Some of the makeover involves removing synthetic colors and flavors from the ingredients that go into the making of a chip. Which is a good thing, but I'm wondering how all the flavored brands are going do without fake whatevers. We'll see. Actually, "we" won't see, as I do not like flavored potato chips - even the most innocuous sour cream and onion flavor. Although I'm down with Cape Cod Russets, the original, the plain, the "vanilla of potato chips" is still the greatest 

Anyway, as part of the Lay's rebranding, Pepsico - the snack empire that Lay's is a major part of - is putting the potato on the bag as well. 

• The redesign will also incorporate a new logo that looks like the sun, photos of potatoes on the bag, and the phrase “Made with real potatoes.”
• A 2021 survey found that 42% of consumers didn’t know Lay’s were made out of the spuds. (Source: Fortune)

42% of consumers didn't know Lay's were made out of spuds? Come on now!

I can see not thinking that Cheese Doodles aren't really made with cheese. (And you'd be right. It's "cheese flavoring.") I can see not knowing what the hell Pringles are made out of. (If you're wondering, it's dehydrated processed potato.)

But what did people think potato chips were made out of? It's pretty simple. Unless they're those weird flavored chips - barbeque, vinegar, dill pickle - potato chips are made out of potatoes, some type of oil, and salt. 

And even if you don't realize and appreciate what the ingredients are, I betcha can't eat just one.

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Image Source: Pepsico

Short answer: not really

Well, yesterday, my post was dedicated to pudding. Today, we take on an adjacent foodstuff: Jell-o salad.

One of my mother's festive specialties was the Jell-o mold.

Early on in my childhood, for Thanksgiving, she regularly made a Waldorf Salad that contained apples, celery, and walnuts suspended in a lovely golden apple-flavored Jell-o. Even though the walnuts got a little soggy, I loved it. Then Jell-o went and stopped producing apple Jell-o. Hiss, boo. My mother experimented and landed on lime, but it was never the same.

But she had another Jell-o mold up her sleeve: a strawberry Jell-o delight that had strawberries, bananas, and walnuts in it, and was slathered with sour cream. 

For Easter, she made orange Jell-o with shredded carrots and pineapple. 

Sometimes she'd whip up a lime Jell-o with canned pears special, other times she doctored up whatever-flavor-of-Jell-o was on the shelf with canned fruit cocktail or grapes.

True confession: my palate ain't all that sophisticated that I didn't absolutely love these Jell-o molds. Don't knock that orange-pineapple-carrot mold unless you've tried it. (And, yes, I have made plenty of fun of Jell-o molds over the years.)

Maybe it's because I'm half Midwest, but whie I may not ever actually make a Jell-o mold, I'm fine with eating one. 

Years ago, on a biz trip to State Farm HQ in Bloomington, Illionis, we went with our client to the campus cafeteria and there we found not one, not two, but three options for fruity Jell-os. I abstained. I knew they would not be as good as my mother's. 

Although my mother's molds sometimes used a veggie - carrots, celery - Liz never, ever, ever made a savory Jell-o Salad. 

But they're apparently a thing. A gourmet thing.

A recent NY Times article asked a compelling question that drew me right in. Can the Jell-o Salad Be Redeemed! 

Talk about click-bait!

Aspics and other savory gelatins are popular again, this time with top-notch ingredients and a refined, ultramodern look. (Source: NY Times)

What's pictured here is not, of course, an ultra-modern, top notch anything. It's a totally vile 1950's recipe using unflavored gelatin, tomato soup, spaghetti-o's and hot dogs. 

Revolting dosen't begin to describe this desecration. We didn't have a lot of say over what my mother put on the table. She occasionally served something that my father liked, but the kiddos mostly found disgusting. Looking at you, creamed chip beef. Looking at you, liver and onions. But once a year, we were all capable of gagging down a meal we hated. Early on, I mastered the act of sluicing down a bite of something disagreeable by floating it down the hatch in a mouthful of milk. But if my mother ever tried to serve this, there would have been a riot in our kitchen. And rightly so.

But The Times isn't talking about hot dogs and spaghetti-o's. They're talking about high-end top-chef creations. 

They're talking about chefs who make "aspics [which] resemble Lucite sulptures." Like one that features soft-boiled egg, herbs and cubed sausage and ox tongue. Ox tongue? That's right up there in the Top (Bottom?) Five when it comes to disgusting foods. Personally, I'd rather sup on Lucite.

A chef at a Berlin restaurant came up with a dish that 

...used a dashi-flavored gelatin to suspend crisp endive leaves and jewel-like kumquats, making the broth with fermented smoked bonito and umami-rich aged rausu kombu from the Japanese island of Hokkaido.

Oh, FFS. 

Anyway, I was not surprised to learn that this Berlin restaurant went out of business last year.  

I don't care how fancy-schmancy these "salads" are, the short answer to Can the Jell-o Salad Be Redeemed! is not really. A shorter version is NFW. A still shorter version is NO. 

A Jell-o mold with fruit, on the other hand... There is a gelatin brand that makes apple. I'm hosting Thanksgiving. Maybe, just maybe.  

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Image Source: Cookbook Community

Proof of the pudding

I like pudding. 

Chocolate. Butterscotch. Vanilla. Rice. Grapenut. Tapioca. And the near relations: mousse, flan, and whatever's in the middle of those chocolate volcano cakes. And, of course, bread pudding. (Worth a trip to New Orleans for, and it's near-ubiquitous there.)

My father had a colossal sweet tooth, so we always had desserts at our house, and when my mother didn't have time to bake, she'd whip up something quick. As often as not, that was pudding. If she enough time for making something but not enough time for baking something, she made chilled "parfait" of graham crackers and cooked chocolate pudding. If she had a bit of time but not enough for the graham cracker concoction, she made plane old cooked pudding. If she didn't have any time, she made instant. My mother was a scratch baker (and cook), but when it came to pudding, cooked or instant, it came from a little carboard box from Jell-o or Royal. 

Everyone (in their right mind) preferred cooked pudding to instant, but sometimes when it was instant-time, my mother made a combo of chocolate and vanilla, putting them in clear glass bowls - chocolate layer followed by vanilla layer, topped off with half of a maraschino cherry. (I can't say I've ever replicated this "recipe," but I do have a couple of those little clear glass bowls, which are very useful keepers of small amounts of ingredients when baking or cooking. Most recently, I used them for orange zest and freshly squeezed OJ needed for a yummy orange-shrimp-pasta recipe of mine.)

I like pudding.

I rarely make it, but when I'm out and see rice pudding, tapioca, or grapenut pudding on the menu - which I believe can only happen in restaurants/diners that specialize in non-exciting, non-innovative old time American-New England cuisine - I'll often order it. The one and only time I was in Greece, 50+ years ago, the treat of the day was finding a street vendor selling little cups of rizogalo - 

rice pudding dusted with cinammon. 

But one thing about pudding: with the possible exceptions of flan and bread pudding, pudding is eaten with a spoon.

Not so for the youth of the world, who've begun convening in parks and other central locations to eat pudding with a fork.

According to a recent article I saw in The Boston Globe, "eating pudding, in public, with forks" is "the latest social media-driven activity now sweeping the world." Or the GenZ world at least. (All I see on social media, which for me equals BlueSky, is the stuff of politics. That and cute dogs and the occasional poem.)

And the origins of forked pudding are in a country not generally associated with fun.  

The first Pudding mit Gabel [Pudding with Fork] took place in the southwestern German city of Karlsruhe, best known as the site of the country’s Supreme Court, in late August. Evidently, young people across Germany thought it was a tremendous idea. Within weeks, there were pudding fests in Stuttgart, Hamburg, Munich, Hanover, and other cities and towns.

These events attract crowds - a thousand or so twenty-somethings (zwanzig etwas) - and is now spreading around the world. It's recently arrived in the States. Although there was a recently small gathering at Boston's Northeastern University, and another in DC, it hasn't yet taken off. Let's give it some time.

The NU gathering was local, but I was not invited, anymore than an old geezer in the 1950's would have been asked to join in with a bunch of crazy college students seeing how many kids they could stuff in a telephone booth (ah, those were the days) or a VW Beetle. (I'm trying to come up with a similar youth fad of my college era. I guess it was streaking, but I was more into protesting the war in Vietnam.)

I'm happy that GenZ-ers are looking for ways to connect, and have fun, in real life. 

But pudding with forks? Why? Some have suggested the goal is to build community, and make new friends, a slippery grasp for togetherness, in a world that seems increasingly fractured.

But pudding with forks? Although spoons (löffeln) do a better job, I guess the answer is why not? 

The world is often a mean and ugly place, and young people are bearing a disproportionate burden of the meanness and ugliness, especiallly when it comes to what comes next. If you're living through particular and general existential crises, why not have some dopey fun and try eating pudding with a fork. 

The only downside is that it's harder to scrape the last of the goodness out of the cup using a fork. But I guess that's what tongues are for.

The proof of the pudding with forks fad will be to see whether it continues to grow, or just dies out. 

I may be sticking with the spoon method, but I'm rooting for pudding with forks to grow. With so much rancid stupdity and evil out there, we could all use a little fun. (Bonus points for the birthplace being Germany. Juhu!)

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Image Source: Silk

Teddie's going bigtime

I don't remember when I discovered Teddie Peanut Brother. Although Teddie has been around for 100 years now, I didn't grow up with it. We were a Peter Pan PB household, and we ate plenty of it. 

Peter Pan was by no means the most popular brand back then. That was Skippy. But buying Peter Pan was definitely in keeping with parental preference for the oddball. Prince Spaghetti? Fuggedaboutit! We ate Mueller's. Why eat B&M baked beans when you could have Friends instead? Not that I liked baked beans in any way, shape, or form, but this was a particularly galling choice because B&M can labels could be turned in for mission money. Fortunately, the tea brand that worked was Tetley, so I did have an occasional Tetley box lid to contribute to saving pagan babies. 

I don't know if these brand choices were economically or personal idiosyncracy driven, but we also used Ipana toothpaste (not Crest or Colgate), played Easy Money rather than Monopoly, and Keyword rather than Scrabble. 

Of course, whenever we complained about some family weirdness in comparison to what "everyone else" could buy or do, my parents were quick to respond with "but you're not everyone else." Which was abundantly clear to the Rogers kids, that's for sure.

Today, Jif is the number one peanut butter brand in terms of market share, but Jif, the choice of "choosy mothers," didn't factor into my early childhood, other than for this one event. I remember that I was in third grade, so eight years old, and it was a cool early spring day and I was out of school, sick. But not so sick that I couldn't be out riding my bike around our empty street. I'm thinking this must have been when we'd been quarantined with chicken pox and, while I had pretty much recovered, the quarantine fatwa still applied to our house. (My sister Kath had what the doctor - who, by the way, made house calls - characterized as the worst case of chicken pox he'd ever seen.)

Anyway, while I was bicycling around, I met a man going door to door delivering small samples of Jif. My mother took at sample, but we did not convert. (I googled, and there was a nationwide launch of Jif in 1958, which foots with the chicken pox on our house.)

I didn't stay brand loyal to Peter Pan, but as an adult went over to Skippy and once in while to Jif. 

I did stay totally loyal to peanut brother, however. And somewhere along the line, 30+ years ago, I discovered a local brand, Teddie, and that was it for me.

Peanut brother is a staple chez moi, and you can pretty much guarantee that at any given time, there'll be a couple of jars in my cabinet. (Just checked, and I currently have four jars, once of which is pictured here.) 

Teddie is not, of course, to everyone's liking. (My sister Trish is not a fan.) For one thing, it's not homogenized, so you have to stir it up to get the oil mixed in, and you sometimes end up with dry clumps that are difficult to spread. And Teddie isn't sweet, either. Only two ingredients, peanuts and salt. No sugar or anything else added.

Teddie was the brainchild of Michael Hintlian, an Armenian immigrant who opened a candy shop in Boston's Quincy Market in 1925, and a few years later started making peanut butter. 

Now, 100 years after he started his company, that simple food, which he called Teddie Peanut Butter — it’s named after the son of an early employee — has fed generations of New Englanders, developed a cult following among foodies who love that its “all natural” ingredients list consists of just peanuts and salt, and become so in-demand that his grandsons are overseeing a hesitant expansion outside of the region.

After a century as a New England secret, Teddie, our Teddie, is going national.

Over the past two years — driven by an extremely loud insistence from New Englanders who have settled elsewhere in the country — that familiar glass jar with a green lid has made its way onto the shelves of Whole Foods and Publix.

 

It’s a cautious expansion, said Jamie Hintlian, the CEO who is part of the third generation to run the company (his son also works there). If anything, the sales team has found hundreds of ways to say no to retailers who want to carry the brand, Hintlian said, wary of straying too far from its core. (Source: Boston Globe)

I hope that Teddie's is successful in not "straying to far from its core." This is a brand that inspires local loyalty - tees, caps, hoodies, tattoos - near-equivalent to that of Harley-Davidson. And if the comments on The Globe article are any indication, the biggest fear among the faithful is that Teddie's will replace their glass jars with plastic. They did this for a short while a couple of years back, and it was not well-received, but if Teddie's starts shipping all over the country, there'll be pressure to switch to plastic to lower shipping costs. There's also concern that the company will be pressured to add sugar, as some folks/some regions prefer their PB on the sweet side. Not us tough New Englanders, but years ago my sister worked for a company that did marketing research for consumer products companies. I don't remember which specific brand of PB it was, but the formula for peanut butter used by this brand added more sugar than elsewhere to product sold in the South.

There is absolutely no reason to change the Teddie's recipe. The Wircutter, which does product reviews for the New York Times, has twice rated Teddie as the top creamy peanut butter (including a couple of months ago). My preference is crunchy, but I'm sure if they rated the crunchies, Teddie's would again be top of the heap. 

I wish Teddie's a successul nationwide rollout. I love seeing local companies make good. A few years ago, visting friends in Dallas, I was delighted to find Worcester's-own Polar Soda in the grocery store. 

As long as Teddie's keeps the same formula, and keeps its wonderous peanut butter under glass, I'll be happy.

That's a wrap?

I don't generally end up with organic food in my grocery cart. Sometimes I get a bit pious and buy Bell & Evans chicken, grass-fed organic beef. But mostly I give organic veggies, fruits, eggs, meat, whatever a pass. Yet on a recent stroll through the produce section at Whole Foods, in search of red and yellow peppers, my eyes were drawn to the organic red pepper display. Mostly because some of those organic red peppers were swaddled in plastic wrap.

My reaction was to ask myself a question that trips off my lips (or trips through my synapses) with increasing frequency. In short form: WTF???

I guess I'm behind the times, because when I googled, it turns out that the wrappping o' the pepper has been a thing for quite a while. The first mention I found - first page of search results - was a reference to a 1986 academic study entitled "Film Wrapping to Alleviate Chilling Injury of Bell Peppers."

A 2009 article on My Plastic Free Life asked the question "Organic food in plastic packaging - isn't it ironic?" Needless to say, My Plastic Free Life wasn't enamored with the use of plastic to wrap fruit and veg:

I want to see safe product packaging added to the criteria for organic certification. I want producers to ask what “food grade” really means and for manufacturers of plastic products to be required to reveal all of their additives. I want all manufacturers to follow the principal of Extended Producer Responsibility and plan for a practical cradle to cradle life cycle for their products and packaging BEFORE putting them on the market.

Well, me, too. 

As it turns out, FreshWrap, the wrap that was wrapping those organic Whole Foods red peppers, is "the only reusable wrap on the market infused with organic botanicals proven to keep food fresh for longer."

So there's that.

But that still leaves me asking a variation on the WTF question. And that's Why The Fuck? 

A 2016 article in Sierra  - yes, the Sierra Club's mag - asked and answered the question "Why are so many organic fruits and vegetables plastic-wrapped?"

...there is some justification (mostly economic) for the use of plastic, because organic produce usually costs a lot more to grow than its industrial cousins. Spoilage, known as "shrink" in retail lingo, is a bigger concern with organic fruits and vegetables than with ordinary produce, because shrink drives up prices, which are already the biggest barrier to organics. Since one rotten apple spoils the barrel, it helps to isolate some types of produce.

Packaging also reduces dehydration, while enabling the use of UPC codes for accurate pricing. Even that individual wrapping is about price, in that folks don't want to pay for more than one item if they don't need it. Finally, organic produce in storage is not allowed to be in contact with nonorganic produce, so those pesky plastics serve a prophylactic purpose.

If you can't grow your own food or hoof it to a farmers' market, plastic may be a necessary evil. But it can't hurt to let your grocer know that you don't like it, as some stores manage to sell unwrapped organic produce. And of course, recycle packaging whenever possible.

I still don't like it, but at least I now sort of get it.

But it does remind me of the mother of a good friend of mine from high school. Mrs. H used to wrap the bananas that seemed to make their way into Kathleen's brown bag lunch with some frequency. This was the 1960s. I guess Peg was ahead of her time. She sure wouldn't have been as surprised as I was to see those red peppers all wrapped up and - as far as I'm concerned - no place to go. 

Bottom of the barrel at Cracker Barrel

Although I've been to a Cracker Barrel a couple of times, I'll never be a regular. 

1. There aren't many around here
2. The calories
3. I'm way too much of a snob

But what's not to like (other than the calories) about those biscuits, those fried apples? And I will say that when I've been to a Cracker Barrel (last time, over 20 years ago while on a business trip to South Carolina) the service was fine (although probably a bit too chirpy for my liking).

But the service wasn't so fine for a group of Maryland special ed students - kiddos with severe cognitive disabilities and/or autism - who were snubbed, denied service, treated poorly, while on a field trip. 

On Tuesday [December 3rd], a group of 11 students and seven staff members from Maryland's Charles County Public Schools District were "refused service" at the Cracker Barrel restaurant in Waldorf, Maryland, Superintendent Maria Navarro said in a statement. The outing was a part of community-based instruction for students at the district's Dr. James Craik Elementary School. The instruction allows students in special education programs to perform practical skills and socialize with the public. (Source: USA Today)

The school had called ahead and got the okay that they wouldn't need a reservation for their party, despite its size; had informed the Cracker Barrel people of the purpose of the visit; and had also told them that they were willing to split up if needed. 

But, no. When the group showed up - after doing some Christmas shopping at a Dollar Store - the teachers were told not only that they couldn't be seated, but that Cracker Barrel should be taken off the list of restaurants approved "for community-based instruction."

Cracker Barrel? Wouldn't you think that an informal, inexpensive, family-friendly, nothing fancy restaurant - especially one that specializes in exuding real fake cornpone charm - would be an ideal venue for a bunch of kids who might be messy, make funny noises, act weird. Hmmm. When I look at it at this way, wouldn't this describe most groups of kids?

The staff and students were allowed to place a take out order, but taking out and eating back at school is not the same experience as sitting down in a restaurant and being waited on. So Cracker Barrel was willing to deprive the crew of their money - feel free to pay for takeout! - and their experience. Shameful!

Both servers and management, the school staff said, were rude and ignored the kids. Althought the place wasn't busy, it took what seemed like forever for the takeout meals to be prepared, so the kids ended up waiting on the bus. (By the way, it's not like the 11 students were free-ranging in the restaurant. There were 7 staff members to support those 11 students.)

The parents - naturally furious - threatened a protest and, as news of the incident spread, the Cracker Barrel was flooded with negative Yelp reviews. (Served them right.)

Cracker Barrel apologized, claiming blah-di-blah. The store's general manager and two servers were fired. (And, yes, I do have a scintilla of sympathy for anyone getting fired from what has to be a pretty crummy, bottom of the barrel job to begin with, especially around the holidays. But they really should have known better.)

And just how awful is awful? I can only imagine how much those kids were anticipating their big day out. I can only imagine how the staff prepped them for it. How very awful.

If I were a patron of Cracker Barrel, I'd sure be boycotting. But, as I said, there are none nearby and I'm way, way, way too much of a snob. 

Sugaring Off

We're still a month or so away from sugaring off season, when New England's maple trees are tapped and the sap boiled down to make maple syrup and maple sugar. Is there anything better for breakfast than pancakes with real maple syrup - not the corn syrup abomination you get in crappy restaurants? Yummer! And I'm also partial to maple sugar candy, with its tooth enamel piercing, diabetic coma inducing, sweetness. 

I've never seen sugaring off. But I sure do like the idea of it. 

Most real maple syrup in the United States comes from the Northeast, with Vermont being the Number 1 producing state. 

But New Hampshire's right up there, too, and one of the farms that's still producing the real deal is North Family Farm, which Tim Meeh and his wife Jill McCullough have been doing for 50 years now, since 1974 when they took over the Meeh family farm. And now the couple is facing the facts of all life, but especially farming life:

Now 72, Meeh and McCullough won’t be able to farm forever, and the farm’s future is to be determined. Like many aging farmers in the region, the couple is facing the thorny problem of how to hand off their life’s work — a complicated task involving money, family, and a deep connection to the land.

Farmers around New England are facing this precarious situation in the top region for maple syrup production in the country. The transition to the next generation will determine how much of the region’s agricultural roots — and identity — remain intact.

Maple farming is part of a multimillion dollar industry in New Hampshire but many farms are on the brink of disappearing. As of 2022, more than 40 percent of New Hampshire farmers are over 65 years old, while only 7 percent are under 35, according to the latest Census of Agriculture by the US Department of Agriculture. And some small farms are struggling to stay in business. (Source: Boston Globe)

Meeh and McCullough are hoping that one or both of their sons, Gemini and Daimon, will take over. (Gemini, huh? Ya think Meeh and McCullough might have been on the hippy spectrum back in the day?) 

Certainly, Meeh and McCullough have done everything they can to keep the operation going and self-supporting. 

Their operation now taps around 2,500 trees, producing about 1,250 gallons of organic syrup a year, according to Meeh. The maple syrup, maple cream, and maple candies they produce are sold online and at farmer’s markets, in addition to being distributed around the state to restaurants, grocery stores, and food co-ops. The couple has made the finances work through a diversified operation, growing hay and selling firewood in addition to making maple syrup.

Still, they're concerned about the farm's future.  Over the last few years, the number of maple farm operations in NH has declined by roughly 10%, from 528 to 471. 

While neither of the Meeh boys has fully declared, it sounds as if Gemini is leaning toward taking over the farm. A carpenter, hes been working the farm a few days a week. 

“There’s nothing like farming,” he said. “It’s the most enjoyable and fun work that I could imagine.”

He said he wants his young daughter to grow up around the same farm that he did. 

I'm sure that there is nothing like farming. I'm sure there aren't a lot of professions that are more demanding and just plain bone-wearying hard. (My husband's Uncle Bill grew up on a tobacco farm in Western Massachusetts, and farmed it for many years before turning it into a golf course. Uncle Bill made no bones about how hard farming is. In comparison, running the golf course was a breeze.) Still, tapping trees, the smell of maple during sugaring off...There sure is plenty of romance associated with it.

Good luck to North Family Farm. 

If I needed maple syrup, I'd order me some. But I think that the gift jug I have in my fridge is still good to go. Pancake dinner, coming right up!

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That painting Sugaring Off? Who else but Grandma Moses?

I REFUSE to believe this

It was old news - and most certainly fake news - but I was startled a while back when I saw this float into my Twitter timeline. You probably won't be able to read the map, but how in the world did circus peanuts come up as the most popular movie candy in Massachusetts?

Other than gag-inducing horehound drops - which I sampled as a kid on a trip to Sturbridge Village where they were sold as the type of treat that kids in the 1820's apparently grooved on - is there a worse candy than circus peanuts. Circus peanuts. Mother. Of. God.

No state's favorite comes near on the abysmal scale, although NJ (Banana Laffy Taffy), NY and LA (Pixie Sticks), GA (Smarties), and  CO and FL (Dum Dums) comd close. I'd rather have a Dum Dum than M&M's said no kid ever. 

At least, I will note, there were no candy buttons anywhere to be seen. 

I could understand it if Massachusetts went with NECCO wafers, as Utah did. I'm not all that partial to NECCO wafers, and certainly would never buy them at a movie theater. (I would accept one if offered, but since I don't play Holy Communion any longer, I have no need for a NECCO wafer. They were good for that one thing.) But NECCO wafers would make some sense, as they're a native Massachusetts candy. 

Baked beans would make sense here, too, even though they were invented in Chicago. I'm assuming that the map means to say Boston Baked Beans, i.e., candy-coated peanuts, are the fave for North Dakota. They can't possibly mean Boston banked beans, as in B&M out of a can and served with franks on a Saturday night. I'd rather have a steaming bowl of baked beans - espeically if I get the yummy chunk of pork fat - rather than a handful of Good 'n Plenty said no kid ever. 

(God knows what to make of Kraft Cheese Singles being the most popular movie treat in Wisconsin. I know Wisconsinites are called cheeseheads. Still...)

But circus peanuts! Never in my life have I ever seen circus peanuts in the candy counter at the movies, let alone bought them.

Mostly, I'm a popcorn kind of girl. If I buy candy, it'll be M&M's or Twizzlers. Something edible.

Of course, circus peanuts have a particular meaning in my family.

Way back in the wayback - that would be 1963 - my father and the Big Three (me, Kath, Tom) drove out to Chicago for a family wedding/vacation. My mother and the Little Two (Rick, Trish) flew.

It was broiling hot and the car was, naturally, not air-conditioned.

Day One was an especially tough one, as we got a flat outside of Buffalo, which meant my father had to change the tire - and doing so meant lightening the load (the car was piled high with most of the suitcases for a family of seven for a two-week trip that included a wedding) so that he could jack the car up. 

On Day Two, my father was hell bent on Chicago. I don't know whether my father was familiar with the Irish battle cry faugh a ballagh - which means clear the way - but he was sure putting it into action on pedal-to-the-metal Day Two. 

We had breakfast at the motel in Erie PA (or Ashtabula OH; one or the other on the way out, on the way back) where we stayed - a HoJo's or Holiday Inn, which I thought was incredibly elegant: those tiny wrapped Ivory soap bars - and then it was non-stop to Chicago. We took one break for bathroom and tank fill 'er up, where my father bought a couple of giant bottles of Pepsi and a ginormous bag of circus peanuts. 

"Don't tell your mother," was the byword of the day. For the remainder of the trip, we gorged on circus peanuts. Admittedly, at the time, I enjoyed them. Today, the very thought makes my stomach roil. And circus peanuts have, of course, become an ongoing family joke.

Anyway, I refuse - make that REFUSE - to believe that circus peanuts were ever the favorite movie treat in Massachusetts, even way back in the wayback of 2019, the date of this travesty.

I'm much more inclined to accept the "results" of a 2022 survey, even though it's based on purchases at Cinemark Theaters. There are only two in Massachusetts, and they're in the western part of the state, so I'v never been to one. But, kid allergies aside, Peanut M&M's make a lot of sense.

And it's gratifying to see that the Cinemark list doesn't have any Smarties, Dum Dums, Laffy Taffy (banana or other), or Pixie Sticks on it, either. 

Circus peanuts!!! NFW!!!

Amazing Amazon, cheese powder edition

A few weeks ago, I decided to make a King Arthur Flour recipe recommended to me by my friend Joyce, an excellent cook. The galette sounded delish - zucchini, tomatoes, ricotta - but the crust called for cheese powder.

Cheese powder? I'd never even heard of cheese powder. It was an optional ingredient, but I thought I'd give it a whirl.

I couldn't find it at my grocery store, but I may not have been looking in all the wrong places. E.g., baking needs. 

So I turned to Amazing Amazon. 

I'm a regular Amazon user. Not insanely so. Just regular regular. Most of the time, I try to find the object of my desire locally, brick & mortarly. Sometimes it's just not there. Other times, the object of my desire can be ordered by my locally, brick & mortarly outlet. But it just won't arrive as quickly as I need to get my needy little hands on it. 

So, cheese powder.

I wanted to make my galette the next morning, so I wanted it - not really needed it: optional ingredient, after all - the next morning. Early. Arriving at 10 p.m., the typical Amazon Prime guarantee, wasn't going to cut it. But for a few bucks extra, Amazon could get it here early early. One window was 4 a.m. to 8 a.m., the other was 8 a.m. to noon. Although I didn't like the idea of the delivery person buzzing my buzzer at 4 a.m., I grabbed the early slot. 

This meant that within 12 hours of when I ordered it, I was going to have my cheese powder.

This is absolutely amazing. 

Amazon, like Walmart, is a company that most of us love to hate and/or hate to love. With me, with Walmart, it's love to hate, even though I have been in a Walmart exactly one time in my life. With me, with Amazon, it's hate to love. And a lot of time I do hate to love it. 

My local indie didn't have an oldie-but-still-goodie collection of Heinrich Böll short stories. Ordering it through them would take forever, and I wanted it more quickly than forever. It wasn't available next-day-at-4 a.m. from Amazon, but it arrived (through a third party) in plenty of time to gift a friend. 

Ditto for the adapter I needed for a recent impromptu trip to Stockholm. I couldn't find my most-of-Europe adapter, and didn't have time to run to TJ Maxx and see what they had. So Amazon it was!

And I don't know where I would have gotten the bulk packages of granola bars and salty snacks we needed for the Juneteenth goody bags we gave to the guests at the homeless shelter where I volunteer. Thank you, Amazon...

Amazon may be ruining the world. Jeff Bezos may have way too much money for anyone's damned good. But you have to give the company (and, I guess, Jeff Bezos) credit for having set up such a brilliant logistics system, capable of the instant consumer gratification that all of us are sometimes looking for.

King Arthur Cheese Powder in hand - I wanted to stay brand consistent, and I was using King Arthur Flour - I went ahead with my galette. 

Surprisingly, for someone who loves to bake, I have never made a pie crust before.

Oh, I've made pies. And I've made quiches. But I've used pre-fab crusts.

My mother was a terrific pie-maker, and many decades ago, she tried to show me how to roll out a pie crust.

She attacked her ball o' dough with vigor, and with just a couple of swipes with the rolling pin, she'd have a near perfect crust rolled out.

In short order, my ball o' dough was sweaty, globs of it attached to the rolling pin. After I while, I'd had enough.

So I gave up on pie-crust making.

Until the galette recipe.

And the crust came out just fine. It was maybe a tad uneven. But fine. Just fine. (From a crust-use point of view, galettes are pretty forgiving.)

I'm not sure what the difference was. 

My mother used Crisco, I used butter?

My mother didn't let her dough stand covered in the fridge for a half-hour before rolling out?

I'm my pie-making mother's daughter, and I just got to be pretty good at this?

Whatever the reason, pie crust and galette success!

I'm thinking of making my mother's blueberry pie recipe this summer, only using a real crust rather than the pre-fab Grahman cracker crust I've gone with in the past. Then there's my Aunt Margaret's pecan pie for Thanksgiving. My next quiche will have homemade crust.

Of course, none of these crusts will call for cheese powder, so I hope that's not the secret to the latter-day emergence of my dough-rolling skill. (I think the stand in the fridge might have made the dough easier to handle.)

But none of this is to take away from the amazing logistics of Amazing Amazon. It's really quite something.